Ex-NM county manager fired for 3rd DWI files lawsuit

ALBUQUERQUE - A former top western New Mexico county official fired after her third drunken driving arrest just two days into a new job was wrongfully terminated because the county’s drug and alcohol policy conflicts with state law, according to a new federal lawsuit.

In court papers filed last week in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, an attorney for former interim Cibola County manager Rheganne Vaughn said the 2014 drunken driving arrest happened outside of work and “did not impair her ability to complete her job duties.”

Vaughn was arrested in Grants, New Mexico, after a state police officer spotted her car swerving in and out of a driving lane, police records said. Authorities said she failed a sobriety test and was charged with aggravated drunken driving.

Vaughn, then 46, had just been named interim county manager after serving as the county’s chief operations officer for a year.

Two weeks after the arrest, Cibola County commissioners unanimously voted to fire Vaughn for violating the county’s drug and alcohol policy.

But the lawsuit said that county policy for employees conflicted with state law since it’s “arbitrary and capricious for a New Mexico public employer to terminate one public employee for a DWI arrest” that “is unrelated to the employees work duties.”

Cibola County manager Tony Boyd said he couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages from Cibola County for breach of contract and violating Vaughn’s due process.

Court record showed Vaughn later was convicted for aggravated drunken driving stemming from her 2014 arrest.

Records also showed Vaughn pleaded no contest for driving under the influence in 2011 following an arrest in Deming. The Deming Headlight reported that Vaughn was overseeing the Luna County’s DWI Prevention Program at the time of her arrest.